The article deals with the theoretical aspect of the question of how the non-verbal behaviour is represented depending on the genre and offers a precise analysis of the artistic devices used for the description of gestures in poems by Homer and Virgil. Exemplified by the most frequent, described with the help of traditional epic forms gesture with the meaning of ‘to take somebody by the hand’ the conclusion is made that although the description is stereotyped and the metric position is fixed, the gesture has various functions. Apart from the ritually-etiquette semantics this gesture may possess psychological semantics which is more evidently presented in the poem by Virgil, who, in several ways, relies on Homer’s poetics.